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First Endocrinologist Appointment

I am so excited to report that today’s appointment was wonderful! Dr. LaSalle is not only and endocrinologist, but also Medical Director of Integrative Medicine, which means she treats the whole body using alternative and conventional medicine. She studied under the direction of the man who established the field of integrative medicine.

After today’s visit, I feel confident that we’ll get to the bottom of my thyroid (and whatever other issue surfaces.) My thyroid shut down in late 2007. Since then, I’ve been fighting to feel “normal” again. I did for a year or so, but even then, I didn’t lose weight and still had symptoms of hypothyroidism. Those symptoms have been getting worse this year, so I made an appointment with Dr. LaSalle (and waited nearly 16 weeks for this day!)

She took me through my health history, my immediate family’s history, my diagnosis and struggle, my eating habits, the supplements I take, and so on. She was extremely pleased that we eat clean and as organic as we can. So the next steps are pretty basic.

She’s going to run a bunch of tests (I’ll list them at the bottom of the post) and I need to go gluten and dairy free–I might have a chronic inflammation issue. She also gave me a reading assignment: ”Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain” by John J. Ratey, MD. Dr. LaSalle also switched me back to name brand Levoxyl rather than the generic levothyroxine I’ve been on since January. (All kinds of changes occurred when I switched.)

Dr. LaSalle mentioned running some tests geared at looking at my neurotransmitters. She commented that when there’s a long family history of mental disorders (depression, bi-polar, etc…) that’s a clue to her that mine might be misfiring. Here’s an article that explains how the neurotransmitters work with the endocrine system.

All in all, for the first time in years, I have a sense of hope regarding my condition. And that is priceless!!

The tests: (abbreviated from the checklist, I don’t know what some of these are)

5 Comments

Cosign! Paleo works wonders for pretty much any ailment! I tried but couldn’t give up my carbs. Jayden was Paleo for a while (worked wonders for his Eczema!), but then we let him have bread again because he couldn’t give it up either. One day at a time…